SOVEREIGNTY: MONARCHY AND NATION STATE

The doctrine of sovereignty is another inseparable corollary of the nation-state  just like the concept of national  power.  As the system lies at the centre of international relations, so  is the doctrine of sovereignty intertwined  with  that of the nation state and the international system.  Sovereignty is an attribute of the state system. Thus, no  discussion on the state system will be considered  complete without featuring  the doctrine and concept of sovereignty.  The  correct phraseology will be “state sovereignty’  since there is no other social  reality  that is imbued  with the

doctrine  of sovereignty,  except the modern state  system.

As a social science concept, it has been subjected to a variety of conceptualizations. For Palmer and Perkins, it is ‘the legal theory that gives the state unique and virtually unlimited authority in all domestic matters and in its relations with other states”¹³.  Another conception  of the term sees it as the ‘claim to be the unlimited political authority, subject to no higher power as regards the  making and enforcing of political decisions”.¹⁴ This  conception tends to restrict sovereignty  to the domestic environment of states. Realizing this,  the  theorist quickly adds that sovereignty in the international  system is the ‘claim by the state to full self government ..”  for the man credited as the father of the doctrine  of  sovereignty,  the  16^th century  French lawyer and political  thinker Jean Bodin (1530=96),  sovereignty is “the  absolute  and  perpetual power of the state, that  is, the   greatest power   to command”¹⁵ in his, six books on the state (les six  livres de la  republique) published in 1576,  Bodin was not only the   first to use the word sovereignty,  but was also the first  to  attempt a systematic and clear  conception of the doctrine as  an attribute of   the state.  In his conception of the doctrine with  regards to the absolute monarchy in the France of his time, Bodin declared sovereignty to be   “the supreme power over  citizens and  subjects,  unrestrained by law”.16 it must  be  observed that in  his   first conception, as we indicated,  Bodin  rightly associated sovereignty with the state- the absolute  and  perpetual power of the state, but subsequently,  with deference to the  absolute monarchy of his   period  which  claimed  a fusion of the state with the  monarch himself, he   now associated sovereignty with the power of the monarch.

The must however be state that the concept of  sovereignty remains as attribute of the state,  not  the   government.  The government only exercises sovereign rights on behalf of the state, and as an agent of the state. And as   Bodin pointed out, sovereignty is perpetual, and so once it is conferred  on the state it continues to retain and  exercise  it  until it, i.e  the state , cases/ to exist.